Comparison of Mental Health Status in Infertile Women with or without Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

Background: The aim of this study was to evaluate mental health disorders in infertile women with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) compared to the infertile women without PCOS. Methods: These two parallel case series studies were conducted during a 12-months period from June 2020 to march 2022 at Arash Hospital affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS). A total of 69 PCOS and 69 non-PCOS women diagnosed with infertility were recruited into the study. The Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90) containing of nine main domains: somatization, obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid and psychoticism was filled out by the participants. The independent t-tests and logistic regression analysis were implemented for comparative analysis. Results: The prevalence of depression was approximately 34% among the infertile women with PCOS which did not significantly differ from non PCOS group (32%). It was shown that phobic anxiety even after adjusting for age was significantly lower in infertile group with PCOS than non-PCOS group. After entering phobic anxiety as independent variable in the model, the odds of having any psychiatric morbidities were significantly lower in infertile women with PCOS than non-PCOS group. Conclusion: The results demonstrated that some mental health disturbances can be observed among infertile women regardless of the etiology of their infertility. Hence, physicians should pay more attention in early diagnosing and managing of psychiatric disorders in these patients.